(I just cross-posted the following over at Huffington Post. Please spread the word on this one between now and next Tuesday if you can. --- BF)
I don't know how long the tradition of an Opposition Party "Response" to the President's State of the Union address has been going on. But for as long as I can recall, it has been a drab, embarrassing, cringe-worthy effort by whichever party found itself unlucky enough to not be in the White House.
Over the last six years, the Bush Administration has run rough-shod over their co-equal Congressional partners, stealing extraordinary power for themselves at every turn with the short-sighted blessings of their Republican chums in the House and Senate as an all-but-castrated Democratic party stood quietly by in the background for the most part.
This year, the Dems have smartly tapped freshman Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) to deliver the Democratic response to Bush's State of the Union Address. No simpering softee he, Webb has already shown he has the stones to look Bush straight in the eye and deliver as good as he gets in the face of a classic Dubya bully-boy alpha-dog snarl.
But no matter how much clout, moral authority or gigantic balls the former Reagan Naval Secretary and proud father of a son still serving in Iraq may be, the conventional stagecraft of the SOTU and its Democratic/Republican Response simply stacks the cards insurmountably against the opposition party and --- as is likely again this year --- only serves to reinforce a perceived, if undeserved, imbalance between the two parties and the two branches of Government.
Just moments after the predictable but rousing reception given to any President during a SOTU address --- featuring long and loud applause break after applause break and the undeniable excitement of a live speech delivered on live television to a packed and contentious house --- there is no way that a one-camera opposition party Response delivered in an all but empty room turned TV studio can ever hope to measure up to the pomp and circumstance of the President's address. That fact would be true even if Superman was selected to deliver the opposition party Response.
It's time to make a change.
And it's time for the Dems to take back just some of the White House's self-proclaimed empirical majesty in the bargain.
So here's what I think is a very good new idea...